We present a comparative evaluation of five different neuroprotective drugs in the early phase following focal
traumatic brain injury (TBI) in mouse intact head. The effectiveness of these drugs in terms of changes in brain tissue
morphology and hemodynamic properties was experimentally evaluated through analysis of the optical absorption
coefficient and spectral reduced scattering parameters in the range of 650-1000 nm. Anesthetized male mice (n=50 and
n=10 control) were subjected to weight drop model mimics real life focal head trauma. Monitoring the effect of injury
and neuroprotective drugs was obtained by using a diffuse reflectance spectroscopy system utilizing independent
source-detector separation and location. Result indicates that administration of minocycline improve hemodynamic and
reduced the level of tissue injury at an early phase post-injury while hypertonic saline treatment decrease brain water
content. These findings highlight the heterogeneity between neuroprotective drugs and the ongoing controversy among
researchers regarding which drug therapy is preferred for treatment of TBI. On the other hand, our results show the
capability of optical spectroscopy technique to noninvasively study brain function following injury and drug therapy.